Latest GDP figures not promising for Australians already doing it tough

ABC NEWS (Australia)

More and more Australians are turning to charities for support as the country's economy continues to grow at a crawl. Despite projections of a brighter longer-term outlook, economists warn that there's still more pain in store for household budgets.

Transcript

00:00Ira works a casual job, but like many Australians, she's finding it hard to make ends meet.

00:08The cost of living is just not affecting people that are unemployed or people that are homeless.

00:13It's affecting people that work, and I work, and it's not enough.

00:18She's taken to getting groceries at a free supermarket in Adelaide, which officially

00:23opened just three weeks ago.

00:25It means that, you know, there's a little bit money left over for other things.

00:30The anticipation was there would be around 100 guests a day, and we've been exceeding

00:37200, 230 people a day.

00:40Charities say they're seeing more demand, and economists say that's not surprising,

00:46given this week's data from the Bureau of Statistics.

00:50While inflation sits at 3.8%, the economy grew by just 0.2% last quarter.

00:56It paints an economy that is slow, that's very clear, but if you look at it from a longer

01:03term perspective, it is the slowest that it's been since the 90s.

01:09While the latest GDP figures show a slow and challenging period, some economists say growth

01:15could stall even further when the July to September quarterly data is released later

01:20this year.

01:21I would suspect that in the short term things might get a bit worse before they get better.

01:26But Dr Stone says the longer term outlook is brighter.

01:30I believe it is a matter of time, let the policy do its work, and then we'll see relief

01:35to households that are really doing it tough.

01:39It means those holding out for interest rate drops might be left waiting until inflation

01:44begins to ease.

01:45In the meantime, services like this one say they're doing what they can to help.

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